Got any figures to back this one up? Cause last time I checked America has the best most efficient health system in the world. All those western nations you mentioned?
Man, you made me spill my coffee all over the keyboard. Most efficient health care system, indeed... Look, I've got no numbers, but I've immigrated to the States from Germany (not for healthcare!), so I'll give you a personal view instead.
In comparison, the US system blows. Big time. Health care here is scary, and purely a function of the money you have. No, I'm not too worried about myself - I make a decent salary, and I've got decent coverage. I am, however, worried about all the people that live at minimum wage without health care. I am worried about the *blatant* attempts of doctors to sell you high-cost procedures just to make a buck. I am worried that one of the first questions in emergency care is "How are you going to pay?"
Sure, people from Europe come over here for treatment - for *really* expensive, cutting edge treatment. That doesn't quite cover the rest of America who're getting shafted. Premium healthcare here is excellent - it's basic healthcare that's the problem.
There is no free market for ISPs. The telcos own the last mile, and they're going to gouge you for it. Why do you think DSL in the states is still so expensive.
So yes, if the telcos push this through, we're screwed.
(I read a test once that any car can be opened within 5 minutes, the more popular the car, the more well-known the trick is to open it).
Five minutes? Only if the person opening the car is rather incompetent. I had the pleasure of locking myself out of my car, had to call AAA, and the guy opened it within 10 seconds, using an old hanger. He says he hasn't seen any car he can't open in less than 30 seconds.
Now, that might exclude extremely high-end cars - I don't know if you call AAA if you're locked out of your nice Jaguar....
Snort, myself. I'm a quite lefty kind of person, in the green corner. However, I'm not blind enough to reality to proclaim NPR is "in the middle". As far as American politics are concerned, NPR is left. If you think different, I suggest you go out and talk to "the average citizen".
It might be boringly in the middle for your taste, but really, it depends on how you calibrate the scale.
This all doesn't matter though - unless we *all* get our act together and realize that our current government (and that includes Dems and Reps) is willing to shaft everybody for campaign contributions, we'll be up sh*t creek without a paddle. The right/left divisiveness plays right into their hands - we think we have a choice, while more or less the same crap gets enacted.
Keep yelling about left/right, and see your rights vanish.
If you're an ISP provider and don't know where exactly the leased lines go, that's understandable. If you're a telco, one would assume you have an idea where your lines run.
And as I said in my post - I'm in an apartment complex that has a completely separate hookup from Verizon. That makes it even simpler for them.
There isn't anything inherrently wrong with cutscenes
That would be true for movies. For games, they blow. They interrupt the flow of action. They mess with suspension of disbelief. They are a tool hoisted from a different media, and it shows.
Until they know the distance from the CO, they can't really tell what the line attentuation is going to be
Nice line. However, I do live in LA, not in the woods, and they have my street address - that's more than enough info to figure out distance to the CO.
And even if it weren't, I'm in an apartment complex that is exclusively wired by Verizon. Their equipment is sitting in the basement. And they know it - they mentioned a "special deal only for residents at that complex". So why no answer on the bandwidth, beyond "well, 1.5/128 is possible"?
Spend, then tax still doesn't solve the problem that there will be wide swings. Which removes any chance for planning ahead for individuals and companies alike.
As for government bailouts - even the rescue costs are immense. What about cleanup costs of public property, like roads? Reconstructing roads? Natural disasters carry an immense pricetag, since the value of our shared property is immense. (Let's not debate the "help rebuilding" issue - I haven't spent much time thinking about that, so it's more than likely I would have no idea what I talk about;)
Back to the topic at hand - a certain amount of reserves is a good thing for government. And if we look at our current situation, the problem is not exactly that we're saving up money for bad times. The problems is that we're spending hand-over-fist. Tieing taxes to spending won't help in that area. (After all, pretty much all of congress went "Ra!Ra!" over the war on Iraq, and damn the costs....)
Re:Sure than can - provided they keep speeds up
on
Is Verizon a Network Hog?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The "other options available", as far as DSL is concerned, all use the same basic lines. I'd love to go with somebody else but Verizon, but all the other providers just lease the line from Verizon. There is no competition.
That leaves cable or over-the-air. Not a lot of choices.
It's even worse when you have cable and want to switch to DSL. Verizon refuses to tell you what bandwidth you can get until you order a phone line from them. I.e. using their monopoly to force other services down your throat.
I've talked to competing cable providers - since I really don't like Adelphia - and have heard, verbatim: "That is Adelphia's territory". And it sure like heck feels like they piss on me to mark it.
There is no competition in the telco market. It's a smoke screen maintained by local monopolies. Unless the last mile becomes publicly owned, we'll never get real competition.
Taxes determined by government spending of the current year = No safety margin whatsoever. Hurricane Katrina comes along, and you have to say "sorry, we're out of money. Help yourselves."
Paying out money instead of tax credits: Does that money get taxed when you get it? When you spend it? When the recipient spends it? If it doesn't, do you need to put special stamps on it saying "tax-free money"? How do you track that?
Have you ever bothered to actually *look* at a government budget? That itemized receipt would be marvelously unwieldy and thick.
And that's only the immediately obvious problems. So, while the tax code is indeed in need of reform, it requires a bit more thought than this.
I'm a geek. And yet, I've got better things to do than run a server. Heck, every dope with 2 weeks scripting experience can do it nowadays. I'd rather focus my time on interesting things.
Moderation adds metadata to articles, the same as tagging does. (That's really what tagging is about - semantic markup. Organization is a side effect).
As for what technology constitutes Web2.0 - who knows or cares... Ajax is mentioned often, but so is proper markup and use of CSS for layouts.
But really, the main point was that whining about social technologies while being on/. is kind of strange.
Yes, this whole social interaction concept CLEARLY sucks. I mean, you need to talk to *people* instead of computers. OMG. Hint: Humans are in the majority social animals. They like interacting with each other. Heck, even you do - why else would you post here?
And just to clarify: Slashdot is a blog. Nothing else. "Moderating" comments is the equivalent of "tagging" - if not quite as flexible. And now that slashcode has at least a semi-grip on CSS and HTML, it's almost "Web 2.0";)
What happens is that the old, tech-y names have been replaced by new handles understandable to non-geeks. That's all.
If you ever bought vinyl, you *knew* it would scratch. If you damage your media, it's gone. Your problem. At least under current law. (I.e. if you accidentally spill coffee on a book, it's not like you're entitled to a new one...)
I care about the future of this country too. Heck - I immigrated here, so I'm here by choice, not by default. I'm a regular reader of dKos, but I'm also not closing my eyes to reality. The overwhelming majority of Americans are polite people. Cussing in public is neither appealing to them, nor going to convince them.
If you want to change politics in a democracy (Yeah, yeah. Federal republic), you need to convince that majority that your ideas are better. If the average person doesn't know about an issue and is confronted with two alternatives - well-spoken and civil, or yelling and cussing - who do you think will they believe more?
Am I advocating politics as usual? Certainly not - we need a change. But we're not going to get it with yelling. Well, unless you want to run a revolution. Then you can yell all you want, because things are going to be decided by force, not civil discourse.
Maybe that is what the country needs - but I still believe we can settle matters at the ballot or jury box.
I'd think that a competent lawyer would make the argument that you bought the vinyl knowing its technical limitations. And that's really what you bought - a piece of vinyl that happens to contain content, not perpetual rights to that content.
IANAL. I happen to live off another commonly copied media form, though - so this certainly holds a lot of interest to me.
You know what? The original poster had a good point - it *is* important how you present yourself. As long as you keep it in sync with what you purport to represent, nothing wrong with that.
You know another thing? I'm sick and tired of people resorting to foul language at any and every opportunity. The grandparent was a civilized post - you're presenting the image of somebody foaming at the mouth. And that's *exactly* the image that no politican - left or right - wants to associate with.
If they don't immediately cash out options but sold shares they held at least a year, they fall under the AMT, which - IIRC - is 26%. (Well, if there normal income were more than the AMT, they wouldn't. But I can't see that happening)
1: inject delicious with banner/image/animated/otherwise intrusive advertising
Hm. Strange. I don't see that on Flickr - what makes you think it'l be on del?
2: overbrand it against the original (ie the Y! logo on each page...) Looking at Flickr, again, it's at the bottom of each page. Sure kill to look at a logo in exchange for a free service. Especially if it's at the bottom of the page...
3: start tracking and analyzing people's bookmarks more for their search You're not exactly getting forced to share your bookmarks. They could've just crawled del instead of buying them.
4: enforce limits on the number of bookmarks that people can have, or charge for "premium" services (del.icio.us right now is unlimited bookmarks, free.) Based on what information? Oh, you're making this just up? Sorry, must've missed that.
5: and worst of all, make us merge our yahoo and del.icio.us accounts.
Again, looking at Flickr, that didn't happen. And if it does, I'm not entirely unhappy. I don't want hundreds of online identities.
You *are* aware that browser-related part of Web 2.0 is heavily built on top of AJAX, which uses XmlHttpRequest, which was *introduced* by Microsoft, right? FF was the one catching up....
That's *insightful*? Holy smokes, what are the moderators - stupid or fascist?
Look, just because one innocent person got killed, it's not OK to kill another innocent. I'm amazed at the blatant disregard for human life just because revenge feels good.
I still don't understand why most don't like the cube's controller.
The shoulder trigger moves too far. Way to slow to fully depress.
The Z button is hard to reach when you're on the shoulder button
The final click required too much pressure, especially on shoulder buttons
The placement is different from any other controller
It was a nice try, but it didn't work out. Blame it partially on the game companies for not using it properly, since they had to port to the other platforms too.
Slashdot Mirror
Man, you made me spill my coffee all over the keyboard. Most efficient health care system, indeed... Look, I've got no numbers, but I've immigrated to the States from Germany (not for healthcare!), so I'll give you a personal view instead.
In comparison, the US system blows. Big time. Health care here is scary, and purely a function of the money you have. No, I'm not too worried about myself - I make a decent salary, and I've got decent coverage. I am, however, worried about all the people that live at minimum wage without health care. I am worried about the *blatant* attempts of doctors to sell you high-cost procedures just to make a buck. I am worried that one of the first questions in emergency care is "How are you going to pay?"
Sure, people from Europe come over here for treatment - for *really* expensive, cutting edge treatment. That doesn't quite cover the rest of America who're getting shafted. Premium healthcare here is excellent - it's basic healthcare that's the problem.
I'd consider switching Prof's. I'm by no means brilliant, but it sure as heck doesn't take me a day to figure out what a line of C++ does.
Add to that the fact that it might be the equivalent of hundreds of assembly instructions, which are way harder to grok...
There is no free market for ISPs. The telcos own the last mile, and they're going to gouge you for it. Why do you think DSL in the states is still so expensive.
So yes, if the telcos push this through, we're screwed.
Five minutes? Only if the person opening the car is rather incompetent. I had the pleasure of locking myself out of my car, had to call AAA, and the guy opened it within 10 seconds, using an old hanger. He says he hasn't seen any car he can't open in less than 30 seconds.
Now, that might exclude extremely high-end cars - I don't know if you call AAA if you're locked out of your nice Jaguar....
Snort, myself. I'm a quite lefty kind of person, in the green corner. However, I'm not blind enough to reality to proclaim NPR is "in the middle". As far as American politics are concerned, NPR is left. If you think different, I suggest you go out and talk to "the average citizen".
It might be boringly in the middle for your taste, but really, it depends on how you calibrate the scale.
This all doesn't matter though - unless we *all* get our act together and realize that our current government (and that includes Dems and Reps) is willing to shaft everybody for campaign contributions, we'll be up sh*t creek without a paddle. The right/left divisiveness plays right into their hands - we think we have a choice, while more or less the same crap gets enacted.
Keep yelling about left/right, and see your rights vanish.
If you're an ISP provider and don't know where exactly the leased lines go, that's understandable. If you're a telco, one would assume you have an idea where your lines run.
And as I said in my post - I'm in an apartment complex that has a completely separate hookup from Verizon. That makes it even simpler for them.
There isn't anything inherrently wrong with cutscenes
That would be true for movies. For games, they blow. They interrupt the flow of action. They mess with suspension of disbelief. They are a tool hoisted from a different media, and it shows.
Until they know the distance from the CO, they can't really tell what the line attentuation is going to be
Nice line. However, I do live in LA, not in the woods, and they have my street address - that's more than enough info to figure out distance to the CO.
And even if it weren't, I'm in an apartment complex that is exclusively wired by Verizon. Their equipment is sitting in the basement. And they know it - they mentioned a "special deal only for residents at that complex". So why no answer on the bandwidth, beyond "well, 1.5/128 is possible"?
Spend, then tax still doesn't solve the problem that there will be wide swings. Which removes any chance for planning ahead for individuals and companies alike.
;)
As for government bailouts - even the rescue costs are immense. What about cleanup costs of public property, like roads? Reconstructing roads? Natural disasters carry an immense pricetag, since the value of our shared property is immense. (Let's not debate the "help rebuilding" issue - I haven't spent much time thinking about that, so it's more than likely I would have no idea what I talk about
Back to the topic at hand - a certain amount of reserves is a good thing for government. And if we look at our current situation, the problem is not exactly that we're saving up money for bad times. The problems is that we're spending hand-over-fist. Tieing taxes to spending won't help in that area. (After all, pretty much all of congress went "Ra!Ra!" over the war on Iraq, and damn the costs....)
The "other options available", as far as DSL is concerned, all use the same basic lines. I'd love to go with somebody else but Verizon, but all the other providers just lease the line from Verizon. There is no competition.
That leaves cable or over-the-air. Not a lot of choices.
It's even worse when you have cable and want to switch to DSL. Verizon refuses to tell you what bandwidth you can get until you order a phone line from them. I.e. using their monopoly to force other services down your throat.
I've talked to competing cable providers - since I really don't like Adelphia - and have heard, verbatim: "That is Adelphia's territory". And it sure like heck feels like they piss on me to mark it.
There is no competition in the telco market. It's a smoke screen maintained by local monopolies. Unless the last mile becomes publicly owned, we'll never get real competition.
10 PRINT "NO KILL I"
There - I've defeated you. We have sentient computers already.
Taxes determined by government spending of the current year = No safety margin whatsoever. Hurricane Katrina comes along, and you have to say "sorry, we're out of money. Help yourselves."
Paying out money instead of tax credits: Does that money get taxed when you get it? When you spend it? When the recipient spends it? If it doesn't, do you need to put special stamps on it saying "tax-free money"? How do you track that?
Have you ever bothered to actually *look* at a government budget? That itemized receipt would be marvelously unwieldy and thick.
And that's only the immediately obvious problems. So, while the tax code is indeed in need of reform, it requires a bit more thought than this.
I'm a geek. And yet, I've got better things to do than run a server. Heck, every dope with 2 weeks scripting experience can do it nowadays. I'd rather focus my time on interesting things.
Moderation adds metadata to articles, the same as tagging does. (That's really what tagging is about - semantic markup. Organization is a side effect).
/. is kind of strange.
As for what technology constitutes Web2.0 - who knows or cares... Ajax is mentioned often, but so is proper markup and use of CSS for layouts.
But really, the main point was that whining about social technologies while being on
Yes, this whole social interaction concept CLEARLY sucks. I mean, you need to talk to *people* instead of computers. OMG. Hint: Humans are in the majority social animals. They like interacting with each other. Heck, even you do - why else would you post here?
;)
And just to clarify: Slashdot is a blog. Nothing else. "Moderating" comments is the equivalent of "tagging" - if not quite as flexible. And now that slashcode has at least a semi-grip on CSS and HTML, it's almost "Web 2.0"
What happens is that the old, tech-y names have been replaced by new handles understandable to non-geeks. That's all.
If you ever bought vinyl, you *knew* it would scratch. If you damage your media, it's gone. Your problem. At least under current law. (I.e. if you accidentally spill coffee on a book, it's not like you're entitled to a new one...)
I care about the future of this country too. Heck - I immigrated here, so I'm here by choice, not by default. I'm a regular reader of dKos, but I'm also not closing my eyes to reality. The overwhelming majority of Americans are polite people. Cussing in public is neither appealing to them, nor going to convince them.
If you want to change politics in a democracy (Yeah, yeah. Federal republic), you need to convince that majority that your ideas are better. If the average person doesn't know about an issue and is confronted with two alternatives - well-spoken and civil, or yelling and cussing - who do you think will they believe more?
Am I advocating politics as usual? Certainly not - we need a change. But we're not going to get it with yelling. Well, unless you want to run a revolution. Then you can yell all you want, because things are going to be decided by force, not civil discourse.
Maybe that is what the country needs - but I still believe we can settle matters at the ballot or jury box.
I'd think that a competent lawyer would make the argument that you bought the vinyl knowing its technical limitations. And that's really what you bought - a piece of vinyl that happens to contain content, not perpetual rights to that content.
IANAL. I happen to live off another commonly copied media form, though - so this certainly holds a lot of interest to me.
You know what? The original poster had a good point - it *is* important how you present yourself. As long as you keep it in sync with what you purport to represent, nothing wrong with that.
You know another thing? I'm sick and tired of people resorting to foul language at any and every opportunity. The grandparent was a civilized post - you're presenting the image of somebody foaming at the mouth. And that's *exactly* the image that no politican - left or right - wants to associate with.
If they don't immediately cash out options but sold shares they held at least a year, they fall under the AMT, which - IIRC - is 26%. (Well, if there normal income were more than the AMT, they wouldn't. But I can't see that happening)
The secret is æ ... æ
1: inject delicious with banner/image/animated/otherwise intrusive advertising
Hm. Strange. I don't see that on Flickr - what makes you think it'l be on del?
2: overbrand it against the original (ie the Y! logo on each page...)
Looking at Flickr, again, it's at the bottom of each page. Sure kill to look at a logo in exchange for a free service. Especially if it's at the bottom of the page...
3: start tracking and analyzing people's bookmarks more for their search
You're not exactly getting forced to share your bookmarks. They could've just crawled del instead of buying them.
4: enforce limits on the number of bookmarks that people can have, or charge for "premium" services (del.icio.us right now is unlimited bookmarks, free.)
Based on what information? Oh, you're making this just up? Sorry, must've missed that.
5: and worst of all, make us merge our yahoo and del.icio.us accounts.
Again, looking at Flickr, that didn't happen. And if it does, I'm not entirely unhappy. I don't want hundreds of online identities.
You *are* aware that browser-related part of Web 2.0 is heavily built on top of AJAX, which uses XmlHttpRequest, which was *introduced* by Microsoft, right? FF was the one catching up....
That's *insightful*? Holy smokes, what are the moderators - stupid or fascist?
Look, just because one innocent person got killed, it's not OK to kill another innocent. I'm amazed at the blatant disregard for human life just because revenge feels good.
It was a nice try, but it didn't work out. Blame it partially on the game companies for not using it properly, since they had to port to the other platforms too.